London has been battered by 50mph winds that have felled trees and caused travel chaos. Powerful gusts swept across the capital as the Met Office issued a yellow "be aware" weather alert for most of the country.

The Bank of England called a halt to its vast £375 billion money-printing programme today as rate-setters put their faith in the new Funding for Lending scheme to drive the British economic recovery.

The decision to suspend quantitative easing for now came in the wake of the surprise 1% growth spurt for the UK economy between July and September. The MPC also left interest rates on hold at their 0.5% record low.

The MPC relaunched QE in October last year as the latest squalls in the eurozone debt storm tipped the UK back into recession, as well as forcing the European Central Bank to pump €1 trillion (£798 billion) in cheap loans into the financial system to keep struggling banks afloat.

The European Central Bank was also set to keep interest rates on hold at 0.75% today.

Doubts have emerged in Threadneedle Street over the effectiveness of QE, particularly with inflation set to rise from its current three-year low of 2.2% over the months ahead, driven by rising energy prices.

The Bank’s Deputy Governor, Charlie Bean, said last week that the impact of QE could be “weaker than usual”, while his fellow deputy, Paul Tucker, also recently expressed fears that QE had “lost its bite”.

The MPC is instead pinning its hopes on the FLS scheme launched in August to give a more direct boost to the economy, with 30 banks accounting for 80% of UK lending already signed up.

The Bank is “encouraged” by the early impact of the initiative, which has brought down mortgage pricing, although it is yet to have a significant impact on the cost of business loans.

Rate-setters could yet turn again to QE if the economy disappoints again after the summer spurt.

A raft of downbeat surveys from the manufacturing, services and construction sector heralds much more difficult conditions in the current quarter, raising the risk of the economy slipping back into reverse during the run-up to Christmas.

Repossession figures offered a bright spot after the number of people losing their homes hit the lowest level for five years between July and September, thanks to rock-bottom interest rates and breathing space from the banks.

The Council of Mortgage Lenders said 8200 properties were repossessed in the third quarter, down from 8500 between April and June and 9600 at the same time last year.